Better Than Fine
by Lady Emily
Summary: Cody and Bailey's engagement party turns ugly when Moseby reveals that Cody "won" the right to Bailey in a spitting contest, prompting London to accidentally reveal that the first time Bailey kissed Cody, she was trying to start a fling with Zack!
1. Part I

Disclaimer: I own nothing you see here.

A/N: Hi all, just a few notes on this silly little story I dreamed up- I had to screw with the timeline of SLoD for it to make sense (not that I think the timeline of the show actually does...). All you really need to know is that Bailey and Cody did not officially get together at the Hannah Montana concert, and that Marcus was around to ask out London soon afterwards... just go with it.

* * *

"I would just like to say that Cody is the best brother a guy could ask for, and I'm so glad he was somehow able to talk such an amazing girl into marrying him." There were chuckles from around the room as Zack finished his toast. "Cody, Bailey... you guys are perfect for each other. Congrats." He raised his champagne glass. "To the happy couple!"

"To the happy couple!" the guests agreed, likewise raising their glasses. Cody and Bailey's nearest and dearest friends and family were crowded into Carey Martin's suite in the Boston Tipton to celebrate the newly engaged couple. The bride and groom-to-be were cuddled up in the big chair. Zack was perched on the arm of the couch where Maddie, London, Carey, and Mr. Moseby were seated, and Marcus leaned on the couch back, his fingers entwined with London's. Arwin and Esteban were seated in chairs pulled from the kitchen table, and Nia, Woody, and Addison milled about in the kitchen.

Grinning at each other mischievously, London and Maddie began to tap on their glasses, signaling for the couple to kiss. Cody blushed self-consciously under everyone's eyes as he made to peck his fiancée on the lips, but Bailey, beaming happily, placed a hand on each side of his face and kissed him deeply to the sound of catcalls from their friends.

"You two are just the cutest!" Maddie exclaimed.

"I can't believe my baby is getting married!" Carey mumbled in a watery voice. "I mean-" she broke off, sniffling, and reached over to snatch the silken handkerchief out of Mr. Moseby's front pocket, blowing her nose in it loudly.

Moseby wrinkled his nose in disgust, but reached around to pat her back comfortingly. "There, there."

On her other side, London patted Carey's leg sympathetically. "Maybe we should tell some happy stories!" she suggested.

"Yeah!" Marcus spoke up. "Who knows some good Cody or Bailey stories?"

"Well we all know some Cody stories..." Maddie volunteered with a smile. "After all, he pretty much grew up in this hotel."

"Oh boy." Cody groaned. "You know, we REALLY don't have to tell Little Cody stories. I just got her to agree to marry me, I don't want you all changing her mind!"

Bailey ran her fingers through his hair affectionately. "There is _nothing_ they could say that would make me change my mind." she assured him, gazing into his eyes.

"Me neither." Cody returned, brushing their lips together briefly before turning to the rest of the group. "Okay, let the embarrassing Cody stories begin."

"To be fair, they're mostly all Little Cody-and-Zack stories." Arwin pointed out. "You two used to be inseparable."

"Thank god _that's_ over." Cody and Zack said at the same time, before staring at each other in surprise.

"Ooh! I want to hear some childhood stories about you and Zack!" Bailey teased, wrapping her arms around Cody's neck and squeezing affectionately. "Judging from the havoc you used to wreak on the S.S. Tipton in high school, I can only imagine what you two were like as little kids!"

"Pretty much the same." Moseby said with a groan. "But they were harder to tell apart."

"I could always tell them apart." Maddie said. "Cody was the one in the sweater vest, and Zack was the one hitting on me!"

"It was easier to tell them apart when Cody dyed his hair red." London remembered.

"Red, huh?" Bailey said with a smile. "I bet that was cute."

"It was _auburn._" Cody insisted.

"It wasn't cute. It was _pink_." Zack corrected.

"Pink." "Yeah." "Definitely pink." everyone agreed.

"Well it was _supposed _to be auburn." Cody said sheepishly. "I just remember being so mad that people kept getting us mixed up. And of course I was always getting in trouble for stuff Zack did..."

"I liked the pink." Esteban said. "It gave you character."

"Hmm." Moseby said thoughtfully. "Was the pink hair incident before or after Cody went through his mime phase?"

"A mime!" Bailey said gleefully, grinning down at Cody. "And if I know you, you went all out, too. Striped shirt? White makeup?" Cody buried his head in his hands in shame.

"You guessed it." Carey confirmed. "Cody never did do things halfway..."

Woody scoffed. "Yeah, but who didn't go through a mime phase as a kid?"

Marcus shot him a weird look. "I didn't.... Okay, yeah I did."

"Oh, I remember that!" Maddie exclaimed. "He learned it from the circus performers that came to my prom!"

"Yeah, your prom that sucked until _I_ saved it." Zack reminded her. "Speaking of which, you owe me a dance. You promised to dance with me at my prom since I danced with you at yours!"

"My prom was in the same building you lived in," Maddie reminded him. "Yours was off the coast of Japan! How was I supposed to get there?"

"Should have thought of that before you promised." Zack pointed out. "Don't worry, sweet thang, I'll think of a way for you to make it up to me."

Maddie snorted at Zack's suggestive tone. "Oh please! If I save you a dance at the wedding, will that cover it?"

"Make it two." Zack said, waggling his eyebrows.

"Deal."

"They are_ so_ going to end up together." London hissed in Cody's direction.

"Like I've been telling him since we were twelve, Zack doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell." Cody disagreed.

"Since when did that ever stop either of you from going after girls?" Arwin said with a chuckle. "I remember, back when you used to live here, every other week you were falling all over yourselves trying to impress some girl."

"Ooh, old girlfriend stories..." Bailey said, rubbing her hands together. "What have we got?"

"There weren't that many." Cody assured her.

"Let's see, how about the girl you met in the beauty pageant, when you were pretending to be a girl?" Zack said wickedly.

"Sadly, she already knows about that." Cody said, hanging his head.

"And you still agreed to marry him?!" Nia said in disbelief, hearing the story for the first time.

"I'm not proud of this, but Zack talked me into it, so we could win money for bikes." Cody said.

"Oh, well that's different then." Nia said, rolling her eyes.

"The embarrassing thing is how close he came to actually winning..." Zack said.

"Ahem..." Cody said. "Anyway, there was Barbara, who you met, if you remember that little fiasco where I had to pretend you were my girlfriend."

"Without my knowledge." Bailey laughed. "If she'd just visited a few months later we actually _would_ have been dating and that whole debacle could have been avoided."

"Eh, if it wasn't that it would have been something else." Zack said. "Debacles happen rather frequently around us."

"Every week, like clockwork." Cody agreed.

"Then there was that set of British twins who used to hang around the hotel." Arwin said. "You and Zack dated them a few times."

Esteban laughed. "They were annoying."

"_Really_ annoying." Maddie and London said together, and everyone laughed.

"I met Janice and Jessica on the S.S. Tipton! They weren't so bad!" Bailey said charitably.

"They used to be." Carey said. "Although they weren't the worst of the lot. Who could forget Agnes?"

Zack and Cody both blanched. "We've been trying for years, Mom." Zack said, and Cody nodded in agreement.

Carey laughed. "Well that was a special case. Usually you were competing with each other over girls, not teaming up against them!"

"Yes, I seem to remember you two having quite the fight over the French ambassador's daughter." Moseby said. "And of course, acting as a translator on her date with Cody, since she couldn't speak English!"

"He wouldn't have gotten that date at all if he hadn't been sneaky enough to lock me in a closet so I couldn't get to her!" Zack said.

"Well, we couldn't decide who was going to back off. And come on, the underdog has to get the girl sometimes." Cody grinned, squeezing Bailey's shoulders.

"Yeah, Bailey, he won _you_ in a coin toss!" Zack joked.

"Actually," Moseby corrected, looking between Zack and Cody. "If I remember, it was a _spitting contest_."

"That's my boys." Carey groaned.

"Technically, it wasn't really a _contest_. It's just that both Zack and I had crushes on you, and Zack agreed not to go after you, you know, so that I could, and things wouldn't get ugly between us." Cody protested.

"Actually, I think the reason was that I was too shallow to deal with her emotional baggage." Zack reminded him. Bailey glared at him before turning her gaze onto Cody.

"So you _won_ me, huh?" Bailey asked dangerously, eying Cody sternly. Then she looked at Zack and shuddered. "Guess I dodged a bullet there." she said to Cody, nuzzling her head under his chin.

Cody cocked his head. "You're not mad about that?" he asked hesitantly.

London laughed. "What right does she have to get mad about something like that? It's like, Bailey, tell him who you were _really_ looking for the first time you kissed him on the Sky Deck!"

Bailey sat bolt upright, hitting Cody in the chin with the top of her head. "London-!"

"Ow...What?" Cody asked, rubbing his jaw.

"You told me you were trying to hook up with _Zack_!" London said, still laughing.

"_What?!_" Cody and Zack cried in unison. The room became completely quiet. Even London, realizing she'd said something wrong, fell silent.

"No! That's not-! I wasn't-!" Bailey sputtered under the horrified gaze of her fiancé. She sighed, "Look, it was nothing, a passing fancy, a _phenomenally_ bad idea that I never went through with, and... and..."

A collective gasp rose through the room. Carey buried her face in her hands. London nervously bit the tip off one of her acrylic fingernails.

"Look," Bailey said, her voice becoming watery with tears. "Can I just talk to you for a minute? Alone?"

"Wouldn't you rather talk to Zack?" Cody suggested coolly.

Bailey bit her lip. "Please. I can explain!"

"Fine." Cody disentangled himself from Bailey, dislodged himself from the chair, and stalked into his old bedroom, Bailey following closely behind.

"Why on _earth_ would you say that?" Bailey hissed at London as she passed.

London looked lost. "You know, I don't know..."

* * *

A/N: Stay tuned to find out if Bailey can possibly fix this! Please review and tell me what you liked or didn't like!


	2. Part II

A/N: As always, thanks a million to all my readers and, especially, my reviewers. Enjoy part two! (Warning: serious fluff ahead!)  


* * *

Bailey walked into the twins' old room and closed the door behind her, turning to stand face-to-face with Cody. "Cody..." she said pleadingly, reaching for his face.

He recoiled away from her touch. "Yes?"

"I love you..."

"Do you really? Maybe I should ask _London_ how you feel, just to be sure." Cody snapped. "It's not just that I was just humiliated in front of all my friends and family... It's... I just thought you and I were... Bails..." Somewhere in the course of that sentence he had stopped feeling angry and begun feeling hurt. Bailey wasn't sure which was worse.

"Cody, please don't be upset."

"Upset? Why would I be upset? You wanted to hook up with Zack and instead you got me? I'm just your second choice? Why would that make me upset?!"

"It wasn't like that at all, Cody! I love you, you know that. What London said, it was just some stupid idea I had once, for like two minutes, and I haven't thought about it since. You have to believe me." She reached out and took one of his hands in both of hers. This time, he didn't pull away.

The door opened and Zack slipped in, shutting it behind him.

"Oh, great, the last person we want to see right now." Cody said sarcastically. "...Although I guess I can't speak for Bailey."

"Well, the party's kind of over..." Zack said. "I just wanted to make sure you two were all right." He looked at Bailey. "And to find out what London was talking about out there."

Bailey sighed. "All right. But you have to remember, it was a long time ago. I was young, I was stupid, I was upset..."

Zack folded his arms. "Okay we get it, there's no way you would ever want a guy like me. Just tell the story."

"Okay." Bailey sank down on Cody's bed, pulling him down with her by the hand she was still holding. Zack sat on his old bed, stretching his legs out in front of him. "Okay, so it was near the end of tenth grade right? A few weeks after that Hannah Montana concert you took me to. Remember, we went on that one date, and you were so shy around me after that, I started thinking maybe you weren't as interested in me as I thought, and that maybe you only went with me because I asked you to, and because you and I were such good friends..."

Cody's lips tightened, but he made no comment.

"Anyway, then a few weeks after that, Marcus finally got the guts to ask London to the Spring Fling, and she said yes because he stood up for her when that snooty British guy she was dating made fun of her intelligence..."

"We know all this, Bailey." Zack reminded her. "We were there."

"Okay, but you weren't there when London came home from the Spring Fling gushing about how sweet Marcus was, and what a good dancer he was, and how he treated her like the princess that she was! And you weren't there when he would show up at our cabin door with flowers for her, for no particular reason besides that she finally gave in and agreed to date him after all those months! And you weren't there the day I walked into my cabin to find them so caught up in themselves kissing that they didn't even notice I'd come in!"

"You were jealous of Marcus and London?" Cody asked finally.

Bailey shrugged. "I know it was stupid, but they seemed so happy... And I hadn't gotten anywhere with you since the concert, and I was just feeling like I was alone, and nobody wanted me..." She scrubbed a hand over her face. "So that day when I saw them kissing, I thought, maybe it's a hormonal thing and if I were to just, I don't know, make out with someone- just a one-time thing!- I might feel better..."

"Oh, god." Cody moaned, pulling his hand out of hers and standing up, beginning to pace.

"I don't know what I was thinking!" Bailey pleaded. "It's just that Zack came first to my mind- I knew he'd just broken up with someone because I'd just seen his ex crying in the lunchroom, and... I mean, most of his "relationships" were basically one-time things anyway..."

"Yeah, that's true." Zack admitted. "But, geez, even if you had asked, I wouldn't have _done_ it!" he paused, then grinned at her. "Although I would have been _flattered_."

Bailey scowled at him. "Stop it!"

"No offense, Bails!" Zack said. "It's just that I knew how Cody felt about you, so..."

"Yeah, but I didn't!" Bailey exclaimed.

"So you decided to hook up with my brother, but never actually asked him." Cody said coldly. "What then?"

"You know what happened then." Bailey said. "I found _you_!"

"You _"found"_ me?" Cody repeated. "Wait, you came to me that day because you couldn't _find_ _Zack_?"

"It wasn't like that!" Bailey protested. "Don't you remember? It was really more like _you_ found _me!_" She sat forward and leaned her arms on her knees. "I came up to the Sky Deck, because... well, because I thought Zack would be getting off his shift at the smoothie bar soon."

Cody glared at her.

"But!" Bailey said quickly. "It was the day of that big storm, don't you remember? All the passengers had left the deck because the clouds were getting dark and the sea was getting rough... And you were there, Cody, picking up all the towels and trying to get the deck cleared off before the storm started. I asked you where Zack was, and you said-"

"He closed the bar early because of the storm, and I didn't know where he went..." Cody remembered.

"Right." Bailey said. "I wasn't sure what to do, and I was starting to question my decision to find him in the first place, so I just sat on one of the stools to think for a minute... You finished cleaning up and came over to me, and you asked me if anything was wrong, because I seemed unhappy."

"I remember." Cody said quietly.

"And I told you that it was nothing, that I was just sad over some small, stupid thing, and that I would get over it. And you put your hand on my shoulder and said, if it's making you upset, it's not stupid." Bailey smiled a little, remembering. "And then there was this big gust of wind, and my hair got all tangled up and blown into my face. And you reached out and smoothed it back, tucked it behind my ear so gently... You had this tender look on your face, and I knew right then that I was wrong before, and you _did_ have feelings for me."

"I did have feelings for you." Cody agreed softly. He had stopped pacing and was looking at her from across the room.

Bailey stood up, biting her lip shyly. "And that's when I kissed you, and you kissed me back, and it was the most amazing kiss I'd ever had." She walked across the room to stand directly in front of him. "But then you pulled away and said, 'Bailey, is this okay?' and you were so sweet and so worried about me and I said-"

"'Better than okay.'" Cody finished with a smile.

She reached out and grabbed his hands. "And then the wind blew again, and I shivered, and you saw, and you wrapped your arms around me and pushed me up against the bar and kissed me again, and then _that_ was the best kiss I'd ever had."

"And then it started pouring rain." Cody continued, grinning. "And I wanted to take you inside, but you wouldn't let go of me."

"I wanted to stay right where I was, having the best moment of my life." Bailey said. "And kissing like our lives depended on it."

"So we did." Cody finished. He leaned his forehead against hers. "It was the best moment of my life too." he confessed. "Well, up until the moment you held out your hand and let me put _this_ on it." he shook her left hand slightly, running his thumb over the diamond ring she wore.

"Me too." Bailey whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks. "Cody..." she dropped his hands and threw her arms around him, burying her face in his chest.

"Hey, hey..." Cody soothed, wrapping his arms around her and rubbing her back. "What are _you_ crying for?"

"I just love you so much!" Bailey sobbed. "I can't believe I almost lost you over something as stupid as Zack!" She pulled back from him, sniffling, as she realized how mean that sounded. "Sorry, Zack." she tossed over her shoulder, looking back when he didn't respond. "Where'd he go?"

Cody chuckled. "Oh, he snuck out a few minutes ago. I think we lost him somewhere around the most amazing kiss you ever had."

Bailey laughed too, wiping away her tears with the side of her hand. "Good. Who needs him?" She took Cody's hands again. "Look, I am so sorry about this whole stupid mess with Zack. He's a good guy and a good friend, but he and I could _never _have anything as amazing as what you and I have. You don't know how grateful I am that I couldn't find him that night, because hooking up with him would be the worst thing I could have done. I can't believe I thought for even _one second_ that some one-time fling would be worth giving up my chances of being with you. I can't think of _anything_ worse than not having that moment on the Sky Deck in the rain!" She squeezed his hands. "I never told you about it because I know you get insecure sometimes, and I didn't want you to feel insecure about _us._" She smiled self-deprecatingly. "And because I hoped you'd never find out what an idiot I used to be."

"And because it's not important." Cody reassured her. "You didn't do anything wrong, Bails. I'm sorry I got so shook up about it. We were kids- it's not like I never thought about other girls!" Either missing or ignoring the startled look she gave him, he continued on. "And I'm not insecure, not about us. We love each other. We're great together. And we're going to be fine."

Bailey raised her arms to drape them around his neck, smiling when her engagement ring sparkled in the light. "Better than fine." she said happily, pressing her lips to his.


End file.
